Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Peaches!

So, a few weekends ago, there was a local peach festival. So of course I went, gobbled up some peaches and fair food, and brought a bag of peaches home too. These are Colorado Palisade peaches, in season right now, and people say they're better than Georgia peaches. Well, growing up in the South, I had to try them and see.I decided to make 2 peach desserts with my 6 large peaches. Both are Martha's recipes, with some tweaks by me. I made peach cupcakes and peach cookies.

First, the cupcakes. Martha's recipe calls for nectarines, but peaches are a good substitute. I peeled and chopped up all the peaches at once, so I could just make the various recipes easily. They smelled so good!

After mixing up the batter, I layered the batter with the peaches so when you bit into the cupcake the peaches are in the middle. I've made peach cupcakes before, but I mixed the peaches into the batter, and they all sank to the bottom. This is a better technique.

They baked up perfectly, very fragrant, with a few bits of peaches peeking out. The recipe suggested topping them with whipped cream, but I left them plain.

I also made peach cookies, which also turned out great. Little sweet bites of peach in each one. It was a peach bonanza!

I love using seasonal products when I bake, or coming up with a recipe just to use whatever's fresh. These were indeed excellent peaches, although I can't say how they compare to others. We'll have to do a side-by-side taste test to determine that.